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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29273751">Crimson Fault</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kataclysmic/pseuds/Kataclysmic'>Kataclysmic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stargate SG-1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 03:43:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>808</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29273751</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kataclysmic/pseuds/Kataclysmic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He likes her in red; it speaks of who she isn’t.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Crimson Fault</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He comes to her at night, when she’s sleeping. Knows that she’s expecting him because the door is on the latch and a lamp dimly lights the hallway. Treads softly anyway. Rouses her from sleep with kisses on her neck and whispers “Sam” against her skin. He loves that she is Sam. Loves the soft citrus scent of her bedroom, the crisp white sheets they lay in, the discarded clothes on the floor. He loves the feel of her red painted fingernails cutting into his flesh, knowing only a few hours ago they were painted especially for him. </p>
<p>He drives her wild as he rocks against her. Various missions have meant they’ve not been together in weeks, and he’s longed for her incredibly. She, apparently, has missed him just as much.  She howls against his shoulder when she comes, biting into his skin and draws blood. When she falls against her pillow, his body still warm above hers, her lips are reddened from his blood. He likes that look on her. He likes her in red. At other times, he likes her when she bleeds; it reminds him she’s a woman, not a soldier. Whatever the time of month, it is all the same message to him.</p>
<p>They fuck when they wake the next morning, and after showering together he encourages her to wear the red dress he bought her at Thanksgiving. His plea is innocuous with the assurance that a red dress in February is seasonal. She acquiesces, but cautiously watches his reflection behind hers in the vanity as she applies the red lipstick he bought her the last weekend they were on downtime together. It is always like this; he insists she dress in red when they’re on downtime.  “Red isn’t really a ‘me colour’,” she’d once told him. “Don’t I know it,” he’d quietly replied.</p>
<p>She had once told him – months before they consummated their relationship – that she was willing to wait for him. Wait until they’d kicked the goa’ulds’ ass and released of their duties to the galaxy before pursuing a relationship. It occurred to them soon after that they may not live to see it, that if the Tok’ra had been fighting them for two millennia then why would they see the end of them in their lifetime? It was a week after this he’d bought her the first gift; the cherry-colored slip that looked sexy and suggested so much more. It was the red hot august of that same year that they first slept together. </p>
<p>She knows he likes her in red; it speaks of who she isn’t. He asks her to wear red to differentiate between the Sam he loves, and his Major. Blue is the color of his Major in her dress uniform; smart, beautiful and untouchable. Green is the color of his combating 2IC; dangerous and powerful. He chooses red as the color of his lover, because his Major never wears red. She doesn’t like but understands his methods. She loves him in spite of them. Always has.</p>
<p>They take a long drive out to Cascade-Chipita Park, quite sure no one there will recognise them as Colonel O’Neill and his 2IC Major Carter. They look like a normal couple, and as long as Sam wears red, Jack is not reminded of the military. They walk around hand-in-hand, laughing and smiling and enjoying the sheer presence of one another.  Jack stands behind her and slips his arms around her waist as she eyes the window of a lingerie boutique, when he playfully suggests he buy her some lingerie for Valentine’s Day and nuzzles her neck she sinks against him, smiling. He is just her lover; they know nothing but each other. She only tenses when he informs her just how edible she’d look in the crimson slip that hangs in the window.  For every red piece of clothing he uses to forget she is also his 2IC, it serves only to remind her of the deception they are living.</p>
<p>She relents; lets him buy her the satin nightdress. It helps keep up the barrier he has built between professionalism and his personal life. She wears the slip to bed, ever conscious of what it means to him, and what it doesn’t mean to her. She calls him ‘Colonel’ when she comes. He grunts, buries his face in her red-satin clad breast. </p>
<p>It is only when they roll over to sleep that they find relative peace, and still it is haunted by dreams of red satin and silk smooth skin. For him, the woman he loves is a red-sheathed goddess, separate to the woman he knows under the light of a working day. For her, it is all a deception to the oaths they hold dear, and no amount of crimson garments and scarlet nail polish will ever change that.</p>
<p>-- finis</p>
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